Date of Award

6-2018

Degree Name

MS in Computer Science

Department

Computer Science

Advisor

Bruce DeBruhl

Abstract

With recent advances in technology, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) have grown in application. One of these areas of application is Vehicle Safety Communication (VSC) technology. VSC technology allows for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications that enhance vehicle safety and driving experience. However, these newly developing technologies bring with them a concern for the vehicular privacy of drivers. Vehicles already employ the use of pseudonyms, unique identifiers used with signal messages for a limited period of time, to prevent long term tracking. But can attackers still attack vehicular privacy even when vehicles employ a pseudonym change strategy? The major contribution of this paper is a new attack model that uses long-distance pseudonym changing and short-distance non-changing protocols to associate vehicles with their respective pseudonyms.